Businesses are strongly opposed to the increase, particularly the quick pace of it. A coalition of groups including the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, Restaurants Canada and the Canadian Franchise Association are sending Premier Kathleen Wynne a letter Monday, slamming the “arbitrary” increase.

“Many Ontario employers, especially small businesses, are now considering closing their business because they do not have the capacity to successfully manage such reforms,” they write.

Modern franchising runs identically, internationally, on all countries sharing a British Common law heritage.

The highest levels of national government known full-well for decades that wage theft is largely responsible for the extraordinary ROI that is achieved by franchisors such as Mr. Withers and Ms. Barlow.

The CFA is advising the Conservative government on proposed changes to provincial laws governing franchise agreements. But the association is under fire from hundreds of its own members for its indifference to their complaints, the NDP Critic for Consumer and Commercial Relations said in the Legislature today.

“The CFA has been of no help to many hundreds of entrepreneurs who lost their shirts in shoddy franchise deals,” Martin said. “Instead of taking the CFA’s advice this government should be sending in ministry staff to thoroughly investigate this association’s failures.”

Martin raised the case of Brenda Hope, a mother of two from Coldwater who lost $90,000 as a Chemwise Inc., franchisee. For more than a year, the CFA has refused to look into Hope’s complaints, although it endorsed Chemwise as a member.

Similarly, the CFA has refused to accept a registered letter from Bulk Barn franchisees who have a series of complaints against the franchisor. Martin was also refused when he tried to deliver the letter. The Sault Ste. Marie MPP called on Consumer and Commercial Affairs minister Bob Runciman to act now to protect small businesspeople.

“Perhaps the minister can convince the CFA to live up to its responsibilities to mediate franchise disputes. If he can’t, we need a full-scale probe of this group. It’s the least we can do for hard-working families who lose everything in dubious franchise deals,” Martin said.

The MPP has proposed his own legislation, Bill 35, that is far tougher than the government’s Bill 33. The Martin Franchise Bill would require full-disclosure of franchise contracts, a dispute resolution mechanism, the right to associate and the freedom to source products outside of the chain when not trademark related.

The franchise bar appears to 1st time user franchisees as fundamentally fair, adversarial and zero sum. That is a dangerous myth.

The economic incentives for the “franchisee-friendly attorneys” are to give the pretence of a fair fight (definition: an attempt to make something that is not the case appear true OED) since your being sold-out can be easily explained. Franchisee stupidity and shortsightedness is the most cited, least reality-based reason given.

Answer:

Your franchisee attorney will defect on 100% of all large cases because the franchise industry is effectively a single-payer industry for legal services (franchisors: +95%). As in other human waste treatment systems, the franchise bar functions to let pass the little cases go to trial (to keep the payers fearful and motivated) but skims off the large chunks for the elite 2 firms.

Question:

Why would any franchisor pay out 100% of a massive claim to a group of franchisees for multi-year bad faith dealings when they could cut two cheques (1. their own lawyers and 2. your attorney) to manage the case to a “satisfactory conclusion”? Would 10 per cent of what franchisees are owed be a reasonably figure?

If you were a rational, profit-maximizing multi-decade career Big Franchising professional (who has their own very high sunk costs invested in the status quo industry practices and structure, btw), Wouldn’t YOU just keep your mouth shut, turn a blind eye and play along, too?

There are ways to deal with these perfectly explainable and rational, multiple-level credence gooddangers but you may need to start serving legitimate authority instead of the posers that scatter when the light switch goes on the industry.